Archive for April, 2008
Continue Reading April 30th, 2008
The foreclosure crisis is causing hardship, not just for homeowners but for an unknown number of renters. The Houston Chronicle today tells the story of a contractor who rebuilds Louisiana homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina, now facing eviction because the house he rents in Houston was foreclosed on.
Sapna Aiyer, a Houston legal aid attorney, told the Chronicle that new owners in Texas aren’t required to continue leases that previous owners signed. Even tenants who are up-to-date on payments can be given just 30-days written notice to vacate.
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Continue Reading April 30th, 2008
Brookwood Financial Partners L.P. sold three office buildings totaling 355,269 square feet in Denver’s Tamarac Square to Parmenter Realty Partners for $41 million. Read more »
Continue Reading April 30th, 2008
The New York City real estate market — though strong compared to other major cities — is finally losing steam. Although home prices continue to rise, homes aren’t selling as quickly as they did a year ago. The latest evidence comes from the New York City Office of the Comptroller, which says that real estate tax revenues fell during the first nine months of the budget year.
Real property transfer taxes fell 12.7% and mortgage recording tax collections dropped 20.1%, Reuters reported. The New York City, which has already lost jobs on Wall Street in the wake of the subprime crisis, could lose another 36,000 jobs, the city’s labor department reported last week.
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Continue Reading April 29th, 2008
One out of every 194 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in the first three months of 2008, according to the latest figures released Tuesday by RealtyTrac.
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Continue Reading April 29th, 2008
Snyder Langston reported that it has completed construction of a nine-story, 246,600-square-foot build-to-suit office tower for Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pacific Life Insurance Co. Read more »
Continue Reading April 29th, 2008
Eli Broad, the co-founder of KB Home, told Bloomberg TV yesterday that home prices could fall another 20%. Here’s a link to the story. That is an absolutely enormous amount when you consider that prices have already fallen a bunch. Today the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for February was released. It showed that the 20-city index fell 12.7% from a year earlier and is down 14.8% from its all-time high in July 2006.
I’m guessing that the execs at KB Home aren’t real happy with Eli Broad, because who’s going to buy a house now if they think that Broad is right about where prices are heading? I don’t know how many shares of KB Home that Broad himself still owns, but it can’t be too many because he doesn’t appear on the list of holders of 5% or more of KB Home shares in the latest SEC filing.
^^^^^^^
Trivia: KB Home was founded in 1957 in Detroit as Kaufman & Broad Building Company
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Continue Reading April 28th, 2008
UDR Inc. has purchased Edgewater Luxury Apartments, a 193-unit multi-family community in San Francisco, for $115 million from Urban Housing Group. Read more »
Continue Reading April 25th, 2008
Home production in California is grinding to a halt. The number of single-family home permits dropped 61% to 8,189 during the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2007, according to an April 25 report from the California Building Industry Association.
To put it in perspective, 35,329 single-family home permits were issued in california during the 1st quarter of 2005.
These days building new homes makes little sense with so many foreclosed homes competing for buyers. Builders are waiting for the market to turn around, said Alan Nevin, the builder group’s Chief Economist.
“It basically is a case where builders have more or less decided not to build,” Nevin said. “They are almost viewing this as being custom home builders to the extent that they almost won’t start a new home until somebody has bought it.”
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Continue Reading April 25th, 2008
A year after paying a record $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Ave. in Midtown Manhattan, Kushner Cos. may sell a partial interest in the trophy tower’s coveted retail space to The Carlyle Group in order to retire short-term debt from the transaction, according to local sources. Read more »
Continue Reading April 25th, 2008
SKS Investments takes the next step toward developing a $150 million office property at 1100 Broadway in Oakland with the Oakland Planning Commission’s hands down approval of the design for the 320,000-square-foot green building. Read more »
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